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Friday, August 27, 2010

☞ REVIVE: HCZ to Restore Urban Renewal Block

Last in our series of posts on repairing Urban Renewal superblocks is actually a story that has been featured this past May: LINK. Basically, the New York Housing Authority is leasing out the land that is located in the middle of the St. Nicholas Houses of Central Harlem and repairing an existing street that was previously discontinued (top photo is looking west from 7th Avenue and 129th). The 4 block deep public housing projects span between ACP/7th Avenue and FDB/8th Avenue, from 127th to 131st Street. At the center, there still remains a remnant of 129th Street which ends in a cul-de-sac (click on map to enlarge). The red area on the lower map shows the parking lot that is currently blocking off the westend of 129th at this section of FDB.

So the big news is that the new $100 million HCZ building (shown in blue) will take over some unused green space and the city plans to reconstruct the balance of 129th Street. In doing so, NYCHA has given away land for new development and also started the process in restoring this part of the city grid that was lost decades ago. It's a small move, but a major first step in figuring out how to retrofit the failed Towers in the Park model of city planning. Read the rest of the series on retrofittng the city's housing projects: LINK. The largest retrofit development recently happened just south of Harlem: LINK

7 comments:

I think it is a great thing to get rid of surface parking lots in NYC, but why exactly in this case are the parking lots being replaced for NYCHA residents? I say just get rid of the parking lots. Not sure why public housing residents need parking spots. Hardly anyone else in Manhattan has them.

Uptown girl, my theory on the housing project parking lots is they where built by Robert Moses who had a love of the car that is well documented, so it makes sense that the housing projects built in his tenure would allow for car parking for the residents.

From older residents that I know who grew up in these Housing Projects when they where built, the Housing Projects where a successful leg up to many, they where a hand up and not a hand out. That has all changed and society has certainly changed. The adding of cross streets will help some but there are deeper issues that need to be resolved to bring the Housing Projects away from creating an entrenched culture of generational and career welfare that is no help to anyone.

Sanou's Mum...hilarious and yet so true. I walk through the projects all the time when it's the most convenient route, and I've never had any problems. In fact, one irony is that you have zero chance of being asked for spare change around the projects because beggers assume nobody there has anything to give.

I'm glad to see that some effort toward change is being made, but I agree with Westsider that a completely new approach to public housing is necessary, as is being done in other cities. Time to think big instead of the band-aid approach.